Wartime propaganda
is like the face of Janus- it presents two faces. It embodies both
positive and negative aspects in order to indoctrinate the people to
support and sacrifice for the war effort. Propaganda must not simply
elevate and energize the people in a positive manner to sacrifice
"For King and Country". Wartime propaganda must also belittle
and mock the enemy, thereby diminishing them. As the enemy is
diminished, the home nation's people and leaders are elevated and raised
up as superior. "Negative propaganda", the propaganda of
mockery, hatred and fear, was a powerful tool in the arsenal of
patriotic forces on both the Allied and Central sides in World War One.

The
face of
Janus.

A study of WW1
mocking propaganda reveals some clear distinctions between the negative
propaganda of the Centrals and Allied nations. We believe that these
differences emerge primarily from different political realities of the
two camps and a difference in the war aims of each group of combatants.
While most of the Allied nations were democratic constitutional
monarchies or republics, Germany and Austria-Hungary, though also
officially constitutional monarchies, were lead by reactionary
"divine rightist" sovereigns whose governments were
responsible directly to them, not to their putative parliaments. During
the war these monarchs and their appointed representatives exercised
near absolute power and were little restrained by the representatives of
the masses. There is also a pronounced racialist element in Central
propaganda. The peoples of the Central empires were indoctrinated that a
motley and mongrel aggregation of nations, each individually inferior to
the Germanic brotherhood, sought to diminish and confine their national
aspirations. This message of enemy inferiority was coupled with the
reflective superiority of the Germans and Austrians.

A second
fundamental distinction that helps to explain the differences in their
negative propaganda was the war aims of the two camps. The people of
Germany, at all levels of society were thoroughly convinced that the war
was defensive in nature. Even such political parties of the
"left" as the Social Democrats accepted as fact that in 1914
Germany was surrounded by Powers large and small which actively sought
to deny Germany the position of political and economic preeminence to
which her industry and military entitled her.

For the
Austro-Hungarians the war was justified as being in defense of the very
integrity of that heterogeneous empire. The masses were warned of the
rapacious Russians, Serbians (and later Italians) who sought to carve up
the very body of the nation state.

Among the Allied
Nations it was played out that the war was one of liberation and law.
For the western Allies, World War One pitted the political philosophy of
nation state integrity versus Germanic absolutism. Germany and
Austria-Hungary were portrayed as enemies of the "liberalism"
and "nationalism" which swept Europe from the 1840's and
resulted in the creation of nation states such as Italy, Serbia,
Bulgaria, Romania and Germany itself! This "liberalism"
advocated statehood based upon ethnic grouping, parliamentary government
and resolution of international conflicts by arbitration rather then the
use of force. Germanic and Austrian militarism were seen as the
antithesis and enemy of these noble aspirations.

In summary,
Central mocking propaganda is primarily directed at portraying the
Allies as inferior. Allied propaganda incorporates this but is more
political in tone and strikes at the Germanic political philosophy and
focuses sharply upon their leadership as symbolic of that
"evil".